I've been sick a little more often than normal this winter, and I'm guessing the fact that I keep getting really cold and wet from working outside isn't helping. A good argument for seasonality in farming, where we we attempt to schedule most of the intensive work in the warmer, drier months. Today was another sick day, but I still had to trudge out to do my chores. We had separated the boar and sow from the piglets on Sunday in order to wean them, and thanks to some extra fencing, the separation had been going great (if we don't wean, the piglets will drink too much milk from the sow and could endanger her health). When I went out this morning in my sick stupor, I was greeted by the boar running up to meet me at the pasture gate--not where he should be. I had left the electric fence off yesterday, and the pigs had figured it out. I coaxed the boar back into his paddock with some food, but the sow and the piglets were also not in their paddock. They were grazing at the far end of the pasture together (at least she has good mothering instincts!). After some fence fixing and pig herding, I had them all back in the right paddocks, and ran back to turn the power back on. Seemed like the problem was solved, and as my adrenaline subsided, I went in to go take a very long nap. At 7:00 this evening I went to go check on them, and could only laugh (and cough, still sick) when I saw that the boar was by himself and the sow had somehow made it back into the piglet paddock. I have no idea how she did it, but they at least all looked content snuggling together in their shelter. Weaning is not going as smoothly as planned. Hopefully I'll have a clearer head and will be able to tackle the problem with fresh eyes tomorrow.
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